Beats was founded in 2008 by music producer Jimmy Iovine and hip-hop star Dr Dre and until recently was best known for its headphones.<\/p>\n
It started a subscription-based music streaming service earlier this year.<\/p>\n
Apple has its own iTunes store, the world’s largest music download service, and launched iTunes Radio last year.<\/p>\n
But despite having been an early pioneer of digital music, the Californian firm has been facing increased competition from subscription services such as Spotify, Pandora and Rdio.<\/p>\n
However, Beats’ music service only has about 250,000 paying subscribers,compared with Spotify’s 10 million.<\/p>\n
‘It’s the people’<\/p>\n
The deal with Beats also marks a departure for Apple, which has a reputation for developing new products in-house, rather than buying up smaller firms – a method preferred by rivals Google.<\/p>\n
But in an interview with the New York Times,\u00a0Mr Cook hinted that Beats’ founders may have been part of the attraction.<\/p>\n
“Could Eddy’s team [Eddy Cue, Apple executive in charge of iTunes] have built a subscription service? Of course,” he told the newspaper.<\/p>\n
“You don’t build everything yourself. It’s not one thing that excites us here. It’s the people. It’s the service.”<\/p>\n
“These guys are really unique,” Mr Cook added. “It’s like finding the precise grain of sand on the beach. They’re rare and very hard to find.”<\/p>\n
The Apple boss also said that Dr Dre and Mr Iovine would be coming up with “products you haven’t thought of yet”.<\/p>\n
![\"In](\"http:\/\/news.bbcimg.co.uk\/media\/images\/75164000\/jpg\/_75164320_022455831-1.jpg\")
<\/div>\nBeats co-founder Jimmy Iovine, who made his name as chairman of the Interscope Geffen A&M record label, welcomed the deal.<\/p>\n
“I’ve always known in my heart that Beats belonged with Apple,” he said.<\/p>\n
“The idea when we started the company was inspired by Apple’s unmatched ability to marry culture and technology.<\/p>\n
Apple analyst Jim Dalrymple hinted that it may be Mr Iovine’s talent that the technology firm is after.<\/p>\n
Writing on his website The Loop, Mr Dalrymple said: “In my opinion, Jimmy is going to play an important role going forward.<\/p>\n
“Maybe not that you always see, but he’ll be there”.<\/p>\n
As well as headphones, Beats sells earphones and portable speakers, and has even developed partnerships with carmakers and computer manufacturers to include its BeatsAudio software technology in their products.<\/p>\n
The company’s flagship products have also received several celebrity endorsements, with stars including Lady Gaga, Lil Wayne and Nicki Minaj designing their own customised Beats headphones.<\/p>\n
Subject to regulatory approvals, Apple said it expects the deal to close in the fourth financial quarter of this year.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Source: BBC<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apple has confirmed it will buy headphone maker and music-streaming service provider Beats Electronics. The deal is worth a total of $3bn (\u00a31.8bn), and is thought to be Apple’s largest acquisition to date. As part of the acquisition, Beats co-founders Jimmy Iovine and Dr Dre will join the technology firm. Apple boss Tim Cook said […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":21345,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[],"tags":[18,445,1081],"yoast_head":"\n